Yes, I know you’re tired of hearing about Kirk Cousins. But just this once, let’s entertain the notion of a Kirk Cousins return.
For the first time in 7+ years, Vikings fans seem to be unified in support of the team’s starting QB, J.J. McCarthy. Kirk Cousins, in contrast, was one of the most polarizing QBs in team history, and his presence at the top of the Vikings’ depth chart led to endless debates about whether the team could really expect to win a Super Bowl with him as our starting QB.
Do we really want to open up that can of worms again?
A large part of me says, “absolutely not,” but on the other hand, I think we Vikings fans can all agree that the team’s ability to win games is more important than the fanbase’s ability to agree on all the team’s decisions. Sam Howell is a far less polarizing QB2 than Cousins would be, but there is little doubt that the latter would be more likely to win a football game in the event of an injury to McCarthy.
That said, a trade for Kirk Cousins comes with its own drawbacks. To begin, there’s the cost of the trade: Atlanta has already guaranteed big money to Cousins through 2025, and they seem to want a potential trade partner to take on a sizable portion of that cap hit.
In addition, while they may be happy to roll with Michael Penix Jr. for the time being, they have not seen enough of the sophomore QB to push all their chips in on him; the Falcons could benefit from a veteran backup option like Cousins just as the Vikings could. All of this will likely raise the price to trade for Cousins beyond what the Vikings are willing to spend.
At 37 years old, Cousins’s performance also seems to have dropped off since his prime days in purple. Coming off an Achilles injury, Cousins didn’t have the same zip on his fastball that he used to, and it’s unlikely that he’ll reverse that trend at this stage of his career. All this suggests that if the Vikings got to training camp and decided they were unhappy with Howell as their backup, they might yet be better off trading for a younger backup like Will Levis or Daniel Jones.
Finally, there’s the more intangible and unpredictable issue of Cousins’s locker room presence. By all accounts, Cousins was a great teammate as the Vikings’ starting QB. But at the same time, Cousins expressly demanded the sort of contracts that would guarantee him a starting role. It’s tough to tell, therefore, how Cousins would fare in a backup-type role, and he might well have a detrimental effect on team culture.
At the end of the day, all of this is almost certainly a moot point: Cousins has a no-trade clause, and while he would likely waive that to join another team as a starting QB, it’s hard to believe he’d do it to return to Minnesota as a backup.
After all, Cousins made it clear that he would have stayed in Minnesota last season if the Vikings had made him a competitive offer, but the team decided to go in a different direction. Kirk returning to Minnesota as a backup now would be a bit like returning to your ex-girlfriend as her new husband’s personal assistant.
The Vikings made their decision to move on from Cousins in 2024, and so far, it’s worked better than anyone could have anticipated. It will be interesting to see what becomes of Cousins, and for my part, I hope he gets back on the field somewhere. But unless the Ravens decide they need a new backup, it won’t be in purple.
